The Summer Triangle

NOTES DATE: September 2002 FILM: Kodak E200 Slide Film EXPOSURE: 15 minutes LOCATION: North Fulton Cemetery (Fulton, Michigan) INSTRUMENT: 28 mm lens at f/4 piggybacked on 10" LX200. PROCESSING: Slide scanned with Epson Perfection 3200.  Levels adjusted with Adobe Photoshop 7.0 COMMENTS: The Summer Triangle is made up of the stars Vega, Deneb, and Altair.  Each of those stars is part of a separate constellation.  Vega is part of Lyra "the Lyre", which  can be found in the upper right of this image.  Can you find the triangle and parallelogram that form Lyra?  Deneb  means "tail" in Arabic, because it represents the tail of Cygnus "the Swam" (also known at the Northern Cross).   Altair is part of the constellation Aquila "the Eagle", which is only partly visible in this image.  The small constellations Vulpecula and Sagitta are located inside the Summer Triangle.  Delphinus "the Dolphin" is in the lower left portion of the image.  The Great Rift divides this section of the Milky Way in two.  Many deep sky objects are visible in this photograph to say the least.  It would take a full article to describe them all!  This imaged placed first in the Wide Field category at NIAG Fest on April 23, 2005.